Since the Edo Period, Japanese people of means were fascinated by the exotic, imported, block-printed and hand-painted trade cloth from India, which they called Indo sarasa.

These wealthy Japanese collected Indo sarasa, which was traded by the Dutch East India Company, and they utilized for it very special purposes: for small, neat bags to carry tobacco or medicine, for coverings for precious tea ceremony implements, for use on their jinbaori (Samurai’s “dress” vests often worn over armor), obis and other very specialized uses that provided discrete yet ostentatious signs of refinement.The Japanese love of Indo sarasa persists until today, and old examples are still extremely treasured and collected.   The photos above and below show a kind of Indo sarasa, albeit not the intensely dyed, resisted, mordanted tour de force cloth such as this example in the National Gallery of Australia.  The photos above and below show very finely hand spun and hand woven 19th century Indian cotton that has been block printed in something of rudimentary fashion.  Simple, but nonetheless beautiful.

This square-shaped piece of Indo sarasa is hand stitched from several fragments.  It was intended to be a cover for a zabuton, or a traditional, Japanese seating cushion.  But there is a surprising twist on Indo sarasa: the other side of this cloth shows a Japanese version of Indo sarasa called wa sarasa or Japanese sarasa.

Below you see the reverse side of the cloth shown above which has been stencil dyed to create an all-over pattern: at some point the Japanese started making their own version of sarasa, inspired by the Indian original: in this  case, the pattern is a lush, floral one.  Very curious why the Japanese dyer printed over the Indian print.What is wonderful is that the heavily block-printed Indian original can be seen on the surface of the cloth and provides a discordant, “counter pattern” to the Japanese one.  Very unusual, indeed.The Japanese love everything about Indo sarasa, down to the threads used to weave the cloth: as many of you know, Indian cotton is some of the best in the world.  The cotton of this fragment is Indian and it its qualities of the beauty of the hand spun yarns and the tightness of the weave are spectacular to behold.

This is a really unusual textile; I bought this and several others like it, which over time I will be offering for sale on my website. Do let me know what you think.

Shown today are eight Western tailored shirts sewn from traditional, Japanese cotton cloth, most probably sewn some time around 1950 or 1960.  The cloth of some of the shirts is older, and each of these small garments is unused.

Judging from their small size, bright colors and patterns, and the way the buttons fasten, most of the shirts shown here were intended for women and girls.  The shirt shown bottom, center in the photo above seems to have been for a man.

The shirt, above, closes with metal snaps.  The shirt, below, closes with white, plastic buttons.  Each of these eight shirts is machine stitched.The shirts shown above and the two below are sewn from kasuri or ikat woven cotton.

These shirts are an interesting illustration of Western fashion infiltrating Japanese daily life, a trend that began in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), when Japan moved from being an insular, feudal society toward a more international, modern one.   20th century shirts such as the last one pictured (below), the shirt with the “Henley collar,” were often worn by male workers under a traditional noragi or hanten as they worked the fields.The man’s shirt, below, fastens with white, plastic buttons–and the fabric is a wonderful, hand loomed indigo dyed cotton.  The shirt is partially lined.

This is a really delightful group of garments from old Japan–and if you are small enough, they’d be great fun to wear.